So there’s a divide in the players between having the ability to swap covenants and retaining RPG elements of choice having consequences. Personally, I think both sides have a point.
Blizzard wants there to be RPG aspects but there are players who don’t want to be punished for just wanting to be at their best form for different aspects of the game they enjoy. To tackle them to the ground because you want to push pretty much RP on them just isn’t really fair. Part of these players desire is to perform their best so that they can jump over hurdles as quickly as possible to achieve certain rewards only available in the current patch likes Cutting Edge, high Rating in Arena or, if they create a really actual reward system, Mythic+. Which there are players who partake in multiple avenues.
So, my suggestion would be to create a certain breakpoint in all of these aspects of the game where if achieved, you open up the ability to swap Covenants in the current patch. While not something that I’m saying “Do exactly this”, lets look at raiding as an example. Lets say a raid tier has 12 bosses. Usually the early boss encounters would be a small step up from Heroic and in later encounters you’d start hitting the more difficult encounters. If you clear the first 6 bosses on Mythic, you are now eligible to start a quest chain that’ll allow you to open up the Covenants so that in later encounters if it’s more ideal to make a different choice, you aren’t feeling punished for doing so all the while contributing to your team.
Like I said, in most content you can find success by pretty much doing anything. So things like Heroic Raiding, Mid level Rated PvP and baseline weekly keys aren’t going to have the weight of choice directly affecting players performance to a negative degree.
So that’s my suggestion. I think they can have their system work for both parties without it stepping on the other sides shoes. These are my 2 cents. They already stated that if they found the system isn’t liked then they would revert it down to be more catered to gameplay. Which is something they don’t want to do. So my suggestion attempts to retain both worlds without either having to give up ground.
What do you guys think?
TL;DR: Create a requirement within the primary content of the game (Raiding, Mythic+ and Rated PvP) that once achieved, allows players to start a process or straight up allow them to swap Covenants without having the punishment associated with it.
7 Likes
This thread is gonna be full of people talking about popcorn.
2 Likes
It’s one of the best snacks for gaming!
I think they just need to make all Covenant combat advantages (soulbinds/abilities) available for every character and interchangeable like talents. I’m fine with cosmetic rewards being gated behind 1 Covenant at a time, but think of all the grief RACIALS have caused the developers over the years. We’re about to amplify that.
Certain covenant combat advantages are going to be superior for different forms of content. The WoW playerbase can be VERY picky in who gets into a group and who doesn’t. At some point, it will feel like other people are making your covenant choice for you, because you won’t be invited to a raid, M+, RBG, or arena unless you’re the right covenant.
Additionally, you might like multiple forms of content, and be forced to sacrifice your competitive edge in most of them to remain competitive in the one you like the most.
6 Likes
That’s why when speaking about said break point I didn’t set it to a ridiculously high requirement like getting CE or Glad. Something that I’ve observed in these threads are there are players who are wanting to retain the RPG element of the game by making your choice matter. In places like Heroic Raiding or Mid range Arena/RBG Rating, you can pretty much do anything and achieve success.
The idea that I’m putting forward is an attempt to create a place where both worlds can exist.
1 Like
Made this pretty late. Thoughts on this?
Complaining that RPG elements aren’t fair in a RPG strikes me as complaining it’s not fair you have to use guns in Call of Duty.
Also this doesn’t do both as much as it just caters entirely to people who want to always be optimal no matter the situation.
Meaningful choice is only meaningful if you can’t change it on a whim. If you let people grind up to the point where they can change it on a whim, it ceases to be meaningful choice.
12 Likes
Don’t think the Call of Duty analogy is a good one at all. Because in Black Ops I actually decided to not use guns and instead used the Ballistic Knife and Tomahawk. I had the choice to do something different.
And opening up the Covenants by having players put in the effort to make that happen doesn’t hurt your gameplay at all. But it does hurt when you’re wanting to partake in multiple avenues of the game but find yourself falling short because of your Covenant choice.
Having a meaningful choice be tied to power progression and then saying “tough” to the players who partake in multiple aspects of the game is in my opinion being stubborn and short sighted.
6 Likes
I’m pretty sure they’ve already stated players will be able to switch convents in game. It won’t be through a vendor, they said something along the lines of it being similar to the Aldor/Scryer questlines.
I know. Blizzard stated that you can leave a Covenant any time and join a new Covenant that you were never a part of with ease. It’s rejoining the abandoned Covenant that’s going to have consequences. That’s where I’m concerned.
For some reason they keep trying to put a different paint job on something that didn’t work at the start with Legion, which was the only 4 legendaries per character, and BFA, the reforging costs just for changing Azerite abilities.
1 Like
So while I agree I do think it creates timegate issues. But I also think it helps solve the problem better than some of the alternatives (such as the near religious war going on about this). Having the RPG elements nuked from the game for hampering gameplay is a very serious consideration here and a possibility if there isn’t serious compromise from all sides.
Accepting that borrowed power systems are a thing is still painful though in my opinion, I’d much rather have blizz just fix classes than spend time on yet another annoying borrowed power grind.
1 Like
If they announced that I would cancel both my subs today.
Yeah, how dare Blizzard put RPG elements into their MMORPG. They should just cater to the min/max crowd like all the good MMOFPS games do.
/s
5 Likes
That’s part of making decisions though, and from a rp (which people have been wanting more of in game) it makes sense that a group you’ve chosen to abandon/leave wouldn’t be quick to let you back in.
If a decision doesn’t come with some kind of risk vs reward/consequence then it’s not really all that meaningful.
3 Likes
If they untethered the abilities from the Covenant it would be fine. The Covenants would matter to a lot more people, instead of wanting to choose between abilities now they would choose between the NPCs, storylines, and overall aesthetics of the Covenants.
2 Likes
100% would rather have this. But we’re doing yet another borrowed power system and it’s yet again being timegated at the start for wanting to make a change. This screams Legion and BFA launch to me.
1 Like
